Tuesday, December 23, 2014

POLITICO WHITEWASHES BLOOMBERG'S RELATIONSHIP WITH SHARPTON IN ORDER TO BASH DE BLASIO

A lot of people are reading Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush's Politico piece "De Blasio's Nightmare." It's not a bad piece, but this is really misleading (emphasis added):

The blue rage isn't rooted in any one statement de Blasio has made against cops -- in fact, he has been universally supportive of the rank-and-file in his public utterances. But in his past roles as a public official, he's often sided with the victims of police brutality, and recently told an interviewer that he has told Dante, his teenaged mixed-race son, not to reach for a cellphone around officers because it might put him in danger as a "a young man of color." He took the unusual step -- unimaginable under the mayoralties of Rudy Giuliani or Michael Bloomberg -- of inviting Sharpton to City Hall, seating him opposite Bratton at a table where the activist proceeded to strongly denounce the police.

Haberman and Thrush are trying to portray Bloomberg and Giuliani as two responsible conservatives who were at odds with Sharpton, while de Blasio is a dangerous radical who hobnobs with him. In fact, while Sharpton was highly critical of Bloomberg on issues such as stop and frisk, the two have had a rather cozy relationship.

Two days after he'd squeaked past Mark Green in 2001, Bloomberg gripped and grinned with the Reverend Al Sharpton at a dinner for 100 Black Men. It seemed to be a chance encounter, two prominent New Yorkers at the same event, but in fact it was a highly staged handshake, choreographed by Bloomberg himself to send a message: He was no Rudy Giuliani, who fought first and talked later, if at all. The city was once again being run by a mature adult. Bloomberg made sure a photographer was present, and the next morning the shot was on the front page of the Post.

That was from a 2009 article in New York magazine, which went on to say,

Sharpton appreciated Bloomberg's early gesture of respect, as well as the ongoing efforts by the mayor and his staff to keep the lines of communication open. Recently, Sharpton has become partners with Joel Klein in an initiative to close the performance gap between white and black and Latino schoolkids, further drawing him into Bloomberg's orbit.

(Klein at the time was Bloomberg's schools chancellor. He later went on to work for News Corp and was subsequently described as Rupert Murdoch's "consigliere.")

... just past 1:30 p.m. the Rev. Al Sharpton ... eagerly greeted Mr. Bloomberg and escorted him to a celebration overflowing with people and cheers. Once inside the headquarters of his political organization, the National Action Network, Mr. Sharpton announced he was taking off his ring, so no one could say that Mr. Bloomberg had come to the event simply to kiss it.

Here are Bloomberg and Sharpton appearing together (with Newt Gingrich) after meeting with President Obama to discuss education in 2009.

"In December 2010, we travelled together to the Finger Lakes Residential Center in Tompkins County to highlight the broken status quo that is New York State’s juvenile justice system. Today, Governor Cuomo has answered the call with a bold proposal to fix it and New Yorkers should rally around his plan...."

Here's Sharpton defending Bloomberg's gun control crusade in 2013, and claiming that Bloomberg's pro-gun critics were motivated by anti-Semitism.